The Less Angsty Crawford Recruitment Story
by Ophiomancer
Summary: Brad Crawford is not an innocent lamb to be led to slaughter, however much Estet may wish otherwise.


**Pairing(s):** none

**Warnings:** None that don't also apply to the show itself. In fact, this is probably more tame.

**Author's Notes:** I've read my share of Schwarz recruitment stories, especially about Brad. And while I love angst as much as the next fan-girl, I thought it would be fun to write Brad a little bit older, smarter, and less innocent than the usual. Self-sufficient teen Brad instead of baby!Brad.

**Status:** One-shot. Completed February 2006. So yes, this fic is ancient. I'm just trying to archive all of my work in one easily accessible place.

**The Less Angsty Crawford Recruitment Story**

The men had been following him for days.

He saw them with his gift long before he saw them with his eyes. Once he did catch sight of them, it was hard to pretend that he hadn't. Grim men in dark suits and dark glasses, like something out of his old comic books. The weren't trying to blend in with the crowd, but people didn't seem to notice them any way. A very particular kind of not-noticing, like the men were Teflon coated and your eyes slid right off and onto whatever was next to them. Unless you knew that they were supposed to be there.

Then they were real easy to spot.

He knew that it would take them five days to finally approach him. Five days before they would make him an offer he, literally, couldn't refuse. He would go with them to their training facility, a place where he was supposed to find a home with "special people like himself". The only option was whether he would be beaten, restrained, and drugged for the trip. He wondered if they realized that the term "special people like himself" was an oxymoron. He also wondered if they realized how funny they were in their lack of imagination. They could have stepped out of the pages of some sci-fi pulp magazine, or one of those super hero comics. The kind where you could always tell who the bad guys were, because they _looked_ bad.

If they were the type to classify a person mostly by appearance, and he had a feeling that they were, then he could use that. He was sixteen, but was frequently mistaken for older. Something he took advantage of often, but not in ways that would have the police on him. He'd spent the last eighteen months on his own, knew how to be inconspicuous, harmless. Polite, a little bit charming if the situation called for it, but ultimately unmemorable. He could give the two bastards tailing him lessons. He bet they wouldn't have any idea how to manipulate people without their spooky powers. Brad suspected that his boy-next-door routine would have the two of them counting on either being able to awe and amaze, or bully him into joining them.

After all, he was just some kid. And they had spooky powers. Never mind that said spooky powers were having trouble getting into his head.

Brad knew that wherever they were going to take him would be home for a long while. His gift had whispered to him, in feelings more than visions, that it was going to be the most deeply horrifying experience of his life. It would make his time as a runaway orphan seem relaxing. He didn't want to go, but would have to die to stay. Bradley Crawford was too stubborn to die so young. He also couldn't let them bully him, because he was _also_ too stubborn to have his gift used again. Uncle Jeremy and his damned horse races and twice-damned belt had been enough for one lifetime. He also couldn't fight them or run, because they'd just beat him into submission, and proceed to use him anyway. If there was enough left by the end to be of any use.

The best possible solution was to be better at using them than they were at using him.

Which meant that _he_ had to be the one who approached _them_, not the other way round. So he spent a few days thinking over the situation, and pretending to not notice his two extra shadows. More than 24 hours before they planned to approach him openly, he took a bus to a shopping center, and they followed. The parking lot was huge, and not very busy on a Wednesday afternoon. Brad stepped into an inexpensive but clean sandwich place for lunch, giving his stalkers a chance to get settled outside waiting for him. He knew that they would be by the trash can two stores down. He finished his meal calmly, made a visit to the restroom, and washed his hands as he shakily reminded himself that this was the best thing that he could do.

It still wasn't good.

He left the shop, and walked toward the two men by the trash can. One of them was smoking, the other looking bored and irritable, like he had better places to be. Of course, he probably did. Brad didn't look at them as he walked. They noticed him, but didn't bother to move. They didn't think that he could see them, after all. Expected him to walk right on by like they weren't there, big, and loud, and two-dimensional as cartoons.

He stopped before he passed them, turned and faced them. He noticed the flicker of hastily concealed surprise in the smoker's expression, irritation and a gleam of something more dangerous in the other's. He controlled his own expression as best he could. He was stone cold terrified, palms sweating and chilled with it, pulse loud and dizzying in his ears. He knew his face didn't show it, and he hoped he didn't reek enough of fear to give himself away. The look on his face was blank, because he couldn't quite manage confident. Perhaps blank was best, after all. The man without a cigarette was beginning to look positively murderous.

Brad took a deep, cleansing breath, idly wishing that the air was fresher, and looked each man in the eye. Felt himself smile a little as one of them tried to read him, hesitant probing, followed by a more forceful prying, degenerating into frustrated scrabbling at the locked box of his mind. Didn't do the man any good. Didn't even rattle the locks. For all of his Mama's crystal-waving, tarot-reading superstition, the woman had known more than enough about real power to teach him how to shield. He had found it annoying at the time, especially when she had taken him around to one of her friends who supposedly 'read auras', or some such hippie bullshit, to test him. He was grateful for it now, and knew that he would be even more so in the future, at wherever these men were going to take him to.

Speaking of which, best get this freak show on the road.

Brad turned away from the men, slow and looking over his shoulder just a bit so they would know he wasn't running. He turned his face away after a good, long stare, and gazed into the distance at what he knew to be their car, though he had never laid eyes on it before. Walking, his voice carried over his shoulder to the men behind him.

"What are you waiting for?".


End file.
